


Raised Amongst Monsters

by SpiritedAuthor



Series: Duality [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Genderfluid Frisk, I am a dork and terrible at summaries, Papyrus hugs are best hugs, Post Genocide Route, Post-Neutral Route - Neutral Pacifist Ending, References to Depression, References to PTSD, Spoilers for the Genocide Route
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 05:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6272215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiritedAuthor/pseuds/SpiritedAuthor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being caught by Papyrus yet again, Frisk reflects and realizes that they didn't want this. They wanted to be loved, and be somewhere safe, not out in the open and fighting for their lives. This is the story of them acting on that choice, and how it changes the Underground. </p><p>Note: Frisks gender is fluid in this story, so the terms that are used to identify them will change. In the first chapter Frisk sees herself as a girl, the second they see themselves as non-binary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome Home

**Author's Note:**

> Hello folks~ This is... well, a story that's sort of been writing itself in my head while I've been playing the game. Now, there is something about Frisk I will let you know about ahead of time- when the monsters refer to Frisk, they will all be using gender neutral terminology. The only time gender is brought into it is when the narrator is Frisk (and it will change, sometimes in the same chapter). So... yeah, I think that's all I have to say for now. Thank you for taking an interest in my story!

“IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR SOMEWHERE TO STAY, JUST ASK! YOU DON’T HAVE TO KEEP FIGHTING ME.

YOUR HOST,

PAPYRUS”

The young girl sat in the garage of the skeleton brothers and stared at the new note, a hand frozen on her head where she was fixing her ribbon. She hadn’t even meant for Papyrus to keep on capturing her- she was just so tired that, when it came for her and her soul to avoid the bones, neither of them could muster up the energy to move. And when she went to the inn, the bed was too hard, and while she did get more health than usual, she couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t at all like her room back… back with Toriel.

Her heart ached at the memory of their parting ways. Toriel had told her to not come back… and no matter how many times she called, she never picked up. It rang three times, then there was a beep of an answering machine. Frisk had left message after message, telling Toriel how much she was sorry, and begging her to pick up. They could still talk! It didn’t have to be goodbye! She hadn’t meant to say she wanted to go back to the surface… back to a place she didn’t remember much of. But, if Toriel was listening at the messages she wasn’t answering her. Frisk was very much alone.

It felt like she was always alone. She could remember back to when she wasn’t… here. She was somewhere else. It was dark and somehow, very wrong. There, she didn’t know what she was. She still didn’t even now, really. But, she didn’t know that she was a human while she was there. There was no word for it. There was… nothing, beyond the beep of a machine and a funny _zap_ on her tongue. If she had to call it anything… it would have been warm static.

Then, she was falling. She couldn’t remember how she’d gone from the staticy place to falling into the yellow flowers, but she had. And after wandering around she’d met Flowey… and then her Goat Mom. And, Frisk hadn’t been scared anymore. She felt safer in her home in the Ruins than anywhere else she’d been before.

Why had she told her Mom she wanted to leave? If she’d not asked, she could still be there with her Goat Mom- learning about the Ruins and snail facts and making friends with the tiny Froggit in the wall…

Frisk dropped the note, her hands starting to shake. Her throat tightened up, making it hard for her to breathe. Soon enough, warm tears began to roll down her cheeks. They landed on the note with a soft _splat_.

Frisk started crying.

_...Can’t let Azzy see. He won’t let me live it down…_

The thought struck her as strange, but in the moment she pushed it away. She wanted to go home! Who cared about the warm static and the funny thoughts? She wanted her bed, and her Mom and everything to be back the way it was! The human wrapped her arms around herself as she sobbed, trying to give herself some form of comfort. Mom was warm and soft… Mom was just trying to protect her. Why did she ask to leave?!

~~

It was then that Papyrus entered. Every other time he had asked Sans to check on the human, and while he loved his brother, he decided that it would probably be better for him to check on them this time. If it was he they kept escaping to see, why not give them what they wanted? That way, they wouldn’t try to escape!

But when he walked closer to the cell, what he saw gave him pause.

The brown-haired human was hugging themselves… the ribbon that they’d been wearing had fallen out of their hair at some point, but they didn’t seem to notice. They were too busy crying. Why were they so sad…? Was it because they had been captured? They had known he was trying to do that in the very beginning, so that couldn’t be it…

Then he remembered what he’d written on the new note. Could… could they actually have nowhere to go? Were the fights their way of asking him for help?

Slowly, he opened the cell door with a gentle push, and closed the distance between them. The tall skeleton crouched down to the humans’ level, and gently wrapped his bony arms around them. There was a second where the human tensed up, but then they leaned into him and buried their face in his scarf-cape.

“HUMAN, WOULD YOU… _LIKE_ TO STAY WITH SANS AND I? WE HAVE ENOUGHS SPACE FOR YOU, AND… WELL, YOU WOULDN’T HAVE TO BE SO SAD ANYMORE. WE COULD BE FRIENDS, OR SIBLINGS, IF YOU WANT. DOES… DOES THAT SOUND LIKE SOMETHING YOU WANT?”

Without a moment of hesitation, the human in his arms nodded. Though, their crying actually got louder. Was… that a good thing? Did Humans cry differently than Monsters?

“EVERYTHING IS ALL RIGHT. YOU CAN STAY HERE… IF I HAD KNOWN YOU NEEDED OUR HELP, I WOULD HAVE ASKED A LOT SOONER.” He said, which seemed to make the child wrap their arms around him tightly, “COME ON. WE’LL TELL UNDYNE ABOUT YOU LATER… LETS GO INSIDE. IT’S A LOT COMFIER THAN THE JAIL CELL!”

He held the human close and rose to his full height again. Papyrus knew that everyone’s hopes and dreams were relying on this human making it to either her or Asgore…

But, he couldn’t betray a fellow puzzle and pasta appreciator, even if he wanted to. And, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to do it had the human not liked his puzzles, as unfathomable as that idea was. They were sad and needed a home, just like everyone here in the Underground. Granted, their need was more for sunlight and space, but the principle was still the same.

The human choked out a quiet thank you through their tears

Papyrus simply smiled and left the jail cell. This was going to difficult… but, they’d make it work, somehow. First things first, though… he needed to make room for the human to sleep, and get them something nice and warm to eat. They could worry about everything else afterwards.

“WELCOME HOME, FRISK.”


	2. What I Asked For

When they woke up later, they had been laid on a green couch and wrapped in a soft blanket. There was no sign of Papyrus in what they had to assume was the living room of the skeleton brothers home. The only other person there was Sans, who sat in a chair in front of the couch. Something was wrong. Something about his stare… it was detached. Unsure. He wasn’t smiling at all. And, one of his eye sockets was glowing faintly. Glowing…? It hadn’t done that before…had it?

It sent a shiver down their spine. Was Sans mad at them for something?

 _“there's a glimmer of a good person inside of you. the memory of someone who once wanted to do the right thing. someone who, in another time, might have even been... a friend? c'mon, buddy. do you remember me?”_  

Where did they hear that before…? Sans hadn’t said anything like that… but it was his voice. It was tired and hopeful. But he’d only been friendly around them. He wasn’t tired at all when they were solving puzzles before. Not even when they first met at the bridge.

Frisk sat up, letting the blanket fall off of their shoulder into a pile beside them. Sans shifted, sitting straighter than before. “about time you woke up, kid. you had Pap all worried about you when you fell asleep in his arms… now, which one am i speaking to?”

Which… one? “What do you mean?” they asked, cocking their head in slight confusion. It was just them inside their body. There wasn’t anyone else.

“… you don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what?”

“before this.”

“… I fell down before this.”

The glow in Sans’ eye grew brighter as they spoke. It started to flash yellow and blue.

_“the sun is shining, birds are singing, flowers are blooming…. on days like this, kids like you… should be burning in hell.”_

Frisk pressed themselves back into the couch. They could hear their heart thumping loudly in their ears. Something was very wrong. They squeezed their brown eyes shut.

_“…dirty brother killer.”_

_“i can’t afford not to care anymore.”_

**_Looks like you’re_ ** **sans _a brother now~_**

Those other voices... those were Sans. But the last voice… that was from before, when they were crying. Where was it from?! The child covered their ears to block out the voices, willing them to go away. They kept coming and coming, repeating over and over again. There were so many voices, so much anger…

“…looks like you do, at least a little bit.” After Sans spoke, the voices faded away to a dull static. Frisk peeked their eyes open and looked at him. He seemed more… relaxed now, slumped back in his wooden chair. Hands stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie. Eyesocket back to its normal, not glowing state. The smaller skeleton shut his eyes before tilting his head back against the back of the chair. He sighed softly. “not makin this any easier this time around, are you kid?”

“… Sorry.” The child mumbled, looking down at the carpet between them. They weren’t even sure why they were sorry. They just felt bad for some reason. Guilty, like they’d done something wrong. Had they? Frisk wasn’t sure anymore. They pulled their hands off of their ears and sat them in their lap. For a second, they could almost see ash trapped under their finger nails. But, the moment they recognized what it was, the dust was gone.

“well, Paps said you needed somewhere to stay… probably best you do until you remember. sometimes remembering is… crippling. you gonna be okay living with me?”

The child nodded softly, “… Can… can you live with me?”

“… you have no EXP. no LV. so maybe.”

“…How many times have we met?” Somehow, asking that question didn’t feel strange. But, then again, they could SAVE and LOAD… that changed time somehow, didn’t it? Flowey mentioned something along those lines… but then, how much could they actually trust that flower? It had thrown its ‘friendliness pellets’ at them before with the intent to kill them, after all.

“this is the third time, kiddo. the third time… and the first time you decided to stay. so, this’ll be interesting.”

Slowly, Frisk scooted themselves closer to Sans. He seemed less scary now… more tired than anything else. After another moment’s hesitation, the human crawled into his lap and snuggled themselves against him. The skeleton seemed to tense up, before he looked back down at the child and relaxed. Gently, he hugged them. “it’s okay, kid. ’m just tired, is all.”

“Are you sure?” Frisk knew it wasn’t just that. Those voices... memories, they guessed, told a different story.

“yeah.” The response was immediate, almost like Sans didn’t think about it. Had he been asked that a lot by Papyrus? Probably, now that they thought about it. Papyrus was more perceptive than people gave him credit for.

“… Why don’t you care anymore?”

The question seemed to make Sans stop for a moment. Then, he closed his eyes again and let out another, longer sigh. “because… nothing changes. and i can’t… i just got tired. or lazy, maybe.”

Frisk shook their head, “No… you’re not lazy… its okay to be tired, Sans.”

**_That’s fine, go ahead. Take a nap. I can’t go anywhere or do anything. Go to sleep, Sans… I’ll still be here when you wake up. I promise._ **

Another shiver ran down their spine. What was that other voice? Was that a memory too? If it was… did they say it at some point? Sans said they had been here twice before... Frisk looked up into the Skeletons tired eyes, and found him searching theirs. Looking for a trace of that other voice, maybe? If anyone knew anything about that, it’d probably be him. He knew about the other times, after all.

“yeah,” he finally admitted, before focusing on them again, “sometimes, I guess.”

“Not sometimes! All the time. It’s okay to be sad and tired. You don’t have to pretend to be happy!”

“you’re starting to sound a little like Papyrus, kiddo”

The child giggled at the thought, and put their hands on their hips. With a flip of their hair and an angling of their face, they imitated Papyrus almost perfectly, “Then I, the Great Frisk, decree that you must take lots of naps and be allowed to be tired! Nyeh heh heh!”

 He chuckled softly, “all we need is to make you a costume…by the way, i’m technically on break. wanna-“

“Yeah, I wanna go to Grillbys!” Frisk gave him a small smile as they cut him off. For a second, Sans looked surprised, before he chuckled and ruffled their hair.

 “well then, lets take my shortcut, shall we?”

Frisk hopped out of his lap and landed on their feet. The skeleton stood, then offered his hand to the child. They held onto his, entwining their fingers with his boney ones. Sans smiled softly, looking almost legitimately happy for a moment. Then Sans led them into the television.

They felt a zap on their tongue. For a second, everything was dark. Then, they were suddenly in the doorway of Grillbys, with Monsters sitting at almost every table. Sans led them to the bar, and helped them onto the smaller stool before sitting himself down.

“hey, Grillbyz. put whatever the kid orders on my tab, okay?”

The fiery bartender gave him a small nod, then looked over at the child as if to silently ask what they wanted to order.

“Fries, please…” they said, “with lots of ketchup.”

“and a bottle of ketchup for me.”

With a small nod, Grillbyz walked into the back, abandoning the cup he’d been cleaning out behind the counter as he passed.

Frisk rubbed their forehead softly. That shortcut… had that always happened? That spark on their tongue and everything going dark…. It was almost like the place they were before.

The comedian broke the silence, “… 1G for your thoughts?”

“… Your shortcut felt familiar.”

“we’ve been through them before.”

“No.. it felt like something else. Something… before I fell.”

“… like something from the surface?”

They shook their head. “No… I don’t remember the surface. But I remember it was dark.”

“dark how?”

“Dark dark… it tasted like warm static, and I was alone.”

“warm static, huh…? well, maybe it was a bad dream or somethin?”

Frisk shrugged as Grillbyz returned with their food, “I dunno. Maybe…?”

“we’ll keep an eyes on it, okay? tell me if it happens again.”

“Okay, Sans.”

The human tucked into their fries the moment they were placed in front of them. They didn’t realize how hungry they were- they hadn’t touched Papyrus’s hot dog and kibble combination yesterday, so the last thing they’d eaten… was the Nice Cream after playing fetch with Greater Dog. Wow, that was… a long time since they’d last eaten.

They kept an eye on Sans as he drank his ketchup. He seemed better now- or at least like when they’d first met. He was still a little… off. But, that would come with time. He seemed to trust them, so that was something The brunette had a sneaking suspicion that they wouldn’t be here with him if he didn’t.

Sans rested his half-empty bottle on the counter, before meeting their gaze. “so, kid… do you want the spiel about talking flowers?”

Frisk cringed and shook their head feverishly.

“I thought not… it’s not actually an echo flower, is it?”

“No. Its…Flowey.” Another pang of guilt.

“… guess we’ll have to keep an eyesocket on Papyrus too.”

“Yeah.”

“… Frisk. can you promise me something?”

“… Don’t you hate making promises?”

“this is important, okay? if anything happens to me… you have to look after Papyrus. don’t reset or load a save file and try to fix it if something happens.”

“Sans…”

The skeleton spun in his seat to face the human child. The lights in his eyes had disappeared. “you have to promise. no more resets.”

Frisk froze. Could they really promise that? If something happened to any of them, Papyrus, Sans… even Toriel, they would try to go back and fix it. To not to… “… Someday, you gotta learn to quit, right?”

“right. well, my break is just about up. thanks for the distraction, kiddo.” he hopped off of the tall stool and smiled at them, “see ya at home.”

“Bye Sans.”

With a casual wave, the skeleton left the building, leaving Frisk sitting alone. Had they just agreed to that? The child rested their head on the counter. To not load or reset if something happened to Sans...

“…It’ll be okay, kid.” Grillbyz said, his voice dry and cracking at the edges. “Nothings going to happen to Sans.”

“… He seems to think so.”

“Being one of the few people who are aware enough to figure things out can be exhausting. He’ll be fine… we won’t lose him any time soon.”

That almost made them feel a little better. Frisk smiled softly at the fire spirit, “Thanks, Grillbyz.”

“No problem, kid.”


End file.
